Google’s new Google Voice feature lets subscribers get a ten-digit phone number that links all your other numbers, and rings them simultaneously. It also lets you make calls for free in the US and inexpensively for international calls, which will position the feature as a formidable competitor to Skype. The voice service adds a lot of extra value as well, with an SMS feature that converts voice messages into text, so you can read them at your convenience. You can also listen to your voicemails either online or from your phone, and get notifications of voicemail by email or SMS. All in all, it’s a cool sounding service with plenty of useful features. So why am I worried?

First of all, there is the privacy issue. Google’s other services, including Gmail, have been subject of many complaints on that front. The Voice service would involve creating an enormous database of voice calls and private data, and could conceivably give Google access to information that Homeland Security drools over. And because of that cool transcription feature, Google will have text versions of all of your calls–which would be easily searchable by anybody who gains access to it through trickery, hacking, or secret government mandate.

Then there’s the elephant in the room called voice spam. The business model is to offer the service for free. But does Google, or any other big company, offer things for free just because they’re nice guys? After all, their corporate slogan is “do no evil,” right? Of course not. Google has ulterior motives, and they all revolve around profit. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I’d like to know what their real plans are for this beast. Since Google is the king of online advertising, it only makes sense that at some point, ads will be incorporated into Google Voice as well. There is already speculation that Google will be placing targeted ads on your Google voicemails based on your interests, and this would make sense since this matches Google’s real business model. This could conceivably involve Google mining your voice transcripts and analyzing the resulting text to determine your interests, and then delivering ads based on the results.